MITx’s first offer of an online MIT course back in December 2011 received a huge turn-out of almost 155,000 registrants–including
a 15-year-old student in Mongolia studying under Tony Kim ’09, MEng
’11. This fall, that student will attend MIT–but he will have to take
the course he just aced, all over again.
That first course—Circuits and Electronics, or 6.002x—became an important talking point for speakers at the sixth annual MIT LINC conference.
Educators from schools and universities all over the world came to
Cambridge on June 16-19 to discuss how to supplement traditional
education programs with online course materials. (...)

Here is this month’s piece on the changing world of work from furniture maker Herman Miller, a company for which Peter Drucker long consulted and that continues to exemplify his principles of innovation and effectiveness.
Do massive open online courses—widely known by their acronym,
MOOCs—portend the end of institutions of higher education as we’ve known
them? Is learning in such manner all good, all bad or somewhere in
between?

As mentioned in our previous post, this month we had the opportunity to participate on CET’s biennial international conference: “Changing the Future” Entrepreneurs,
educators, researchers and policy makers from all over the world met in
Tel-Aviv to brainstorm and bring innovative thinking into the field of
education. Needless to say…it was awesome and energizing!
Having had the chance to hear from these leaders we did not think it
fair to just tell you about the conference, we want to share! So we
interviewed a few of the attendees for a brief brainstorming session,
and they were glad to partake!
The interview below is with Prof. David Weinberger, co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto, and author of several other books relating to Internet and Society. He is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and the Co-Director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab.
Below a brief summary of our brainstorm: 1

am a proponent of access, especially to education. MOCC, short
for "massive open online course" offers education to those who might not
otherwise have a chance and I am all for it.According to Educause, a company leading the IT industry in Higher
Education, "MOOC is a model for delivering learning content online to
virtually any person -- and as many of them -- who wants to take the
course. Course activities can be scheduled or asynchronous, and a fluid
structure is valuable because students can choose their level of
participation and many will do so in an à la carte manner. A MOOC throws
open the doors of a course and invites anyone to enter, resulting in a
new learning dynamic."
Had MOCCs been available in my youth; I might have taken advantage of their free benefits.
My biological father is an alcoholic Cuban refugee and my birth
mother is schizophrenic. I endured forty foster homes, three group
homes and eventually the death of adopted parents, all before my
fifteenth birthday. My education was haphazard.

I spent little time thinking of secondary education. I was too busy trying to survive.
I was later adopted, as an adult, and my new mother helped me to go back
to school. I became wildly and passionately involved in my college. My
story is rare. Most who walked a minute in my shoes will never see the
inside of a college classroom.

5) Moocs are the clever way to keep up to date
Leading UK universities offer short Mooc courses to help mature students stay abreast of the latest developments in The Guardian
308,000 students from 167 different countries signed up to the first UK moocs last year. Photograph: Gary Chapman/Getty Images
The world of distance learning has changed beyond recognition since the first correspondence courses dropped onto doormats more than 40 years ago. Classes of thousands from around the world can now join interactive lectures for free. This is the world of moocs – massive open online courses – which have blazed a trail in the US. This autumn, 21 UK universities – including Bristol, Leeds and Southampton – are preparing to launch their own moocs in partnership with the Open University.
(...)

Si el primer tema musical del film de los años 50 era:

Can't stand waitin', can't still waitin' on you, can't stand waitin', waitin' on you. You got to let me know, are you serious about it, you got to let me know, can I count on you ?
High society, high society girl livin' in a high society, high society world.
High, high, high society High, high, high society, High, high, high society.
Night after night, [ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/high-society-girl-lyrics-laid-back.html ] night after night, checkin' out with the jetset, you better check it out, can I count on you ?
High society, high society girl livin' in a high society, high society world. High society, high society girl livin' in a high society, high society world.
2* High, high, high society, high, high, high society, high, high, high society.